


how to break up a relationship in seven days

by nebulousviolet



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: F/M, age appropriate teen drama, an attempt at multichap from nebulousviolet? groundbreaking, set post escape velocity pre interception point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25168588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: In which Shelby and Otto embark on a brief, disastrous relationship, Raven finds herself drowning in paperwork left from Overlord's demise, Laura does her best to be happy for her friends, and Nero rapidly loses control over his entry-to-third-year summer Villainy Studies class.(Otto’s not going to cause more trouble if he can help it. He stands up, makes sure to position himself so that he’s closer to Shelby’s pillows than her crossed arms, and says, “I need to get going anyway.”“You have a free,” Laura and Shelby say at the same time, the accent clash making the overall message almost unintelligible. They shoot each other imperceptible glances over Otto’s head in response, and, yeah, it’s really time for Otto to leave while he still can.“I said I’d help Nigel in Villainy Studies,” Otto replies, and it’s not really a lie; he did say that, but that’s not what he’s going to do. “You’re not gonna dob us in, are you, Brand?”)
Relationships: Otto Malpense/Laura Brand, Otto Malpense/Shelby Trinity
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	how to break up a relationship in seven days

**Author's Note:**

> i've always had the headcanon that shelby and otto had crushes on each other at different times during canon - because when you go to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere with eighty students in each year, total, and you only have four other friends, there's bound to be messiness - and glare0322 and i got to talking about the potential chaos of otto and shelby deciding to date and how it would probably last no more than a week, which resulted in this. this is set between escape velocity and dreadnought (and is pre interception point because i do NOT have the energy to think about animus), and will have seven chapters in total. anyway, hope you enjoy!

“We’re going to have to lay down some ground rules,” Shelby says assertively, from where she’s sitting cross-legged on her bed. Otto is sitting next to her, just a few inches away; they’re not quite touching, but it’d be easy enough for him to lean over and brush against her shoulders with his own. He feels weird. This - this is weird. 

“Ground rules?” he echoes, at a loss.

“Yeah,” Shelby says, and leans back onto her elbows. She appears lost in thought, looking over at Laura’s vacant side of the room with an unreadable expression. Even if Otto didn’t know who Shelby’s roommate was, it’d be obvious from the decorations: the homemade ‘FUCK THE TORIES’ poster by her bedside table, the Scottish flag doodled on the open page of her notebook, the four books on quantam mechanics stuffed under her bed with various different bookmarks. There’s a bottle of lotion open on her dresser, the one Laura uses when she’s having an eczema flare, and Otto suddenly has to look away. He’s been in Laura and Shelby’s room hundreds of times before, but this feels different, invasive, and he darts his eyes back over to Shelby instead.

“For example,” Shelby begins, “just because we’re dating doesn’t mean I want to partner with you in classes. You have your strengths, I have mine, and I’m not letting you drag down my Stealth and Evasion grade.”

Otto blinks away the strange tightness in his chest, and nods in agreement. “Agreed. We argue too much to get anything done, anyway.”

“Exactly,” Shelby says approvingly. “Speaking of arguments, no carrying on a fight overnight. If it’s not solved by lockdown, we forget about it.”

“Good idea,” Otto says, thinking back to the time that he and Shelby bickered on and off about which citation format was superior for an entire week. It had only come to a stop when Nero intercepted to remind them that none of their classes required citation until sixth year, and that they’d be better off investing their time in studying for the end of year exam.

The exam that had ultimately been cancelled thanks to Nero’s arrest and Otto’s unexpected confrontation with Overlord, because nothing in Otto’s life has ever been easy.

“Another thing,” Shelby starts, and she sounds oddly hesitant now, like she’s afraid. Shelby is almost never afraid. “I have to be the one who tells Laura.”   
“Uh,” Otto says. “Okay.”   
“Seriously,” Shelby says. “I don’t think you get it. Boys never do. But no mentioning it in front of her until I explain, alright? And no excessive PDA. It’s annoying, and I don’t want her thinking that I’m rubbing it in her face or anything.   
“Rubbing what in her face?” Otto asks. Shelby gives him a look that suggests he’s being incredibly dense, and he quickly holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. No PDA. I understand.”

“So we agree,” Shelby says. 

“I guess we do,” Otto replies.

She grins then, equal parts glowing and frightening and utterly paralysing, and Otto is struck dumb. He thinks, in some tiny part of his head, that Shelby would probably make a snarky comment about him always being dumb. He grins back, and something in his stomach drops, like going over the peak of a rollercoaster, like Shelby’s the one doing the pushing. She probably is; Shelby’s never been one to wait and see. It’s not her style. It might be why Otto likes her so much.

And then the door opens. 

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Laura pants. She’s exuberant, eyes bright and cheeks flushed, her hair half-falling out of the haphazard plait she’s wrestled it into. Her smile fades as she notices Otto, as her gaze zones in on the barely-there gap between himself and Shelby, at the way their bodies are angled towards one another. Otto is going to die, probably. The look that finally settles on her face feels hauntingly familiar in a way that Otto can’t quite place. “Oh. Hi, Otto.”   
“Hi,” Otto says limply.

“What’s going on?” Shelby asks, standing up and appearing utterly, utterly normal. Like she has no intention of telling Laura anything at all. “Please tell me that Franz finally got into a fight with Block and Tackle. I’ve been waiting for years.”   
“Not yet,” Laura says, leaning against the doorframe. She blows a strand of hair off her sweat-sticky face. “You know, you’re not supposed to close the door when we have boys in our room. Tara got a detention for it the other week.”

“It’s just me,” Otto protests. It’s not like it’s been a problem before; he’s spent night after night here with the girls and Wing, textbooks splayed open as they try to diffuse months of information into their brains in order to prepare for one of Pike’s hellish end-of-unit tests, the feeling of being utterly comfortable and safe in his own skin finally beginning to settle over him. But there’s a set to Shelby’s mouth that suggests that saying so is a bad idea. Between Laura’s furrowed brow and the sudden tension in Shelby’s shoulders, there’s something that he’s missing. An inside joke, and Otto is the punchline.

“It’s not a big deal,” Shelby says. 

“Tara would probably disagree,” Laura shrugs. “She says she pulled a muscle polishing all of the Colonel’s medals.”   
“I didn’t know you and Tara were close,” Shelby says. “I thought everyone in the other streams hated the Alphas.”   
“We talk sometimes,” Laura counters. “Mostly in Political Corruption.”

Otto glances alternately between them, feeling ever-more lost. Girls, he thinks, are so confusing. Whatever’s going on between Laura and Shelby, he’s pretty sure they’re speaking in three layers of code at this point, and he lost the gist of this conversation a long time ago. Hell, he lost it from the moment Laura walked in and her face fell as if the breath had been knocked out of her. Otto’s not going to cause more trouble if he can help it. He stands up, makes sure to position himself so that he’s closer to Shelby’s pillows than her crossed arms, and says, “I need to get going anyway.”   
“You have a free,” Laura and Shelby say at the same time, the accent clash making the overall message almost unintelligible. They shoot each other imperceptible glances over Otto’s head in response, and, yeah, it’s really time for Otto to leave while he still can.

“I said I’d help Nigel in Villainy Studies,” Otto replies, and it’s not really a lie; he did say that, but that’s not what he’s going to do. “You’re not gonna dob us in, are you, Brand?”   


It’s meant to come out teasing, but simply lands flat. Laura swallows and Otto makes out the title of one of the books under her bed. A Hawking. It’s been well-loved - he can see the notes scrawled in the margins even when closed. She’s a better scientist than he ever will be, he realises, and not because she’s had to work her way up. She’s better at asking the right questions. “Obviously not,” Laura says quietly, and goes to take a seat by her desk. It’s like she’s an entirely different person to the one who walked in two minutes earlier. Her hair finally pulls free of the plait entirely and the hair band goes careening all over the place, bouncing off the lamp and onto the patch of carpet under the desk; when Laura leans down to get it, she sounds close to tears. “Oh, hell.”   
“Brand?” Shelby asks, frowning.

“I’m going,” Otto says again, but whatever’s on Shelby’s mind, it’s not Otto anymore. She waves him off vaguely, and inches closer to her roommate. “I’ll see you.”

“Sure,” Shelby says, and Otto is pretty sure he breaks a land-speed record when he darts out and shuts the door behind him.

Muffled voices erupt as soon as the door is closed, but Otto decides it’s not worth dwelling on. Instead, he settles on making his way towards the library, telling himself that he’ll pick up the book on Greek linguistics he’s been procrastinating on for weeks. The theory isn’t hard, exactly, but it’s mind-numbing - and as it just so happens, Otto is craving mind-numbing. There is nothing that he could go for harder than mind-numbing right now. He’s thinking about this when he turns a sharp corner and almost bowls the woman over, reeling back in alarm once he realises who it is.

If Otto didn’t know any better, he would’ve fallen for it. The wig is almost seamless, made of glossy caramel-coloured hair that looks too real to be synthetic, and is styled so that it obscures the sides of the face almost perfectly. The contacts are a mundane mud brown, unremarkable in shape and colour. It goes as far as the clothes, even, the non-descript brand of skinny jeans and the plain grey sweatshirt. A lifetime ago, Otto wouldn’t have looked twice. In this one, he resists the urge to stare and says, “I don’t know how to feel about this.”   
“Me neither,” Raven grumbles, and, yeah, she’s still terrifying in street clothes. Almost more terrifying than usual, actually, because Otto feels like he’s been unconsciously lulled into a false sense of security. “I haven’t had time to change yet.”   
“Where were you?” Otto asks. Normally, engaging in small talk with Raven is an act of suicide, but his relationship with the assassin has evolved into something strange over the past two years, a little less student-teacher and a little more irate aunt-smart alec nephew. And if Raven takes him out for this, at least he’ll never have to watch Shelby and Laura passively-aggressively fight ever again. Raven wrinkles her nose at him.

“Trinity or Brand?”   
“What?”   
“Trinity,” Raven decides, ignoring what Otto knows has to be the plain confusion scrawled across his features. “Interesting. Anyway, I was in London. Clearing up after your mess, come to think of it.”   
  
Otto feigns innocence. “What mess?” he asks, all faux blithe. “I’ve never created mess in my entire life.”

Raven barks out a harsh laugh. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she says. She suddenly dumps the files that she’s carrying into Otto’s hands, and gestures for him to follow as she leads him the exact opposite direction of the library. “You might as well be of some use if you’re going to be a pain, Malpense. You got yourself reported missing. Way to go.”   
“Hang on,” Otto interrupts. “You’re implying that I  _ asked  _ someone to report me missing. How could I have done that if I’ve either been here or breaking into a top secret facility under your supervision for the past two years?”   
“I’ve learned not to underestimate you,” Raven returns primly.

“So this is Nero’s fault,” Otto determines, struggling to keep up with her rapid pace. “Did he forget to fudge a local authority transfer or something?”   
“Believe it or not, Nero didn’t handle intake that year,” Raven says. “I did. And  _ I  _ was informed that Number One had handled all of your retrieval details. Which, while not the biggest lie that Overlord ever told, has certainly turned out to be the most inconvenient one.”   
“I think killing several people was probably more inconvenient," Otto points out. "For them, I mean."  


“Maybe,” Raven says. “But if you’re dead, you don’t have to sit through hours at the Department for Education’s office while answering to the name Rita.”   
“No way,” Otto smirks.

“Yes way,” Raven confirms. “Stop looking so smug. No less than four officials thought that your name was Oscar.”

“So where are we going?” Otto asks. They’re cutting through Accommodation Block Seven, taking shortcuts that Otto only vaguely remembers coming across once or twice but Raven clearly knows like the back of her hand. Idly, he wonders how long she’s been working here. She can’t be any older than thirty, judging from the way she seems to brush off bullet wounds like they’re nothing, but it’s clear she’s spent more years at H.I.V.E than she has outside it. “Another road trip?”   
“Hilarious, Malpense,” Raven says, not bothering to look back over at him as she marches ahead. “You’ve got a real smart mouth for someone who keeps nearly getting himself killed.

“It’s a talent.”   
“It’s one I don’t think you should bother pursuing,” she informs him. “We’re going to my office. I have about six weeks of backlogged paperwork, and I know you don’t have any classes on Friday afternoons, so I hope you’re fine with papercuts.”

Papercuts, Otto thinks, sound great.

*   
  
“You could’ve told me,” Laura says.

She’s transplanted herself from the desk to her bed and is doing her best not to look at Shelby, instead squinting up at the plain white surface of the ceiling. The light hurts her eyes, but it’s stopping her from crying, so she’ll take the blindness. And she’s not going to cry. Laura’s not going to cry over a _boy_ , not when he's alive and well and completely oblivious.  


“There wasn’t anything to tell,” Shelby insists. “We haven’t done anything. And I  _ was  _ going to tell you, Brand, I promise.”   
“I wouldn’t have been mad,” Laura says, but she’s not sure about that. She kissed Otto three months ago and neither of them have said anything about it. Three months ago, the world was falling in on itself and Laura was just glad that nobody was dead. Still, that was three months ago; life is normal again and last week Laura barely scraped a pass in Villainy Studies and, guess what, her beautiful, brilliant, hilarious best friend likes Otto. Go figure. “It’s normal. We don’t have other friends.”   
“What about Tara?” Shelby says, drawing it out like torture, and then clears her throat. Laura’s right, and both of them know it. They don’t have other friends; it’s Laura and Shelby and Otto and Wing, and sometimes Franz and Nigel, and that’s it. Everyone else has started giving them a wide berth ever since Cypher, ever since the Contessa gassed the whole student body and only four of them managed to leave H.I.V.E. It’s like when Laura got her tonsils out in the first year of secondary school and came back two weeks later to discover that the friends she’d just made had already moved on. There’s too much of a gulf between the four of them - the six of them - and everyone else. “I know you like him.”   
  
She does. Laura really likes Otto; she likes the way his grin is slightly lopsided, likes the fact that he can never get his hair to lay flat despite the Colonel’s constant demerits, likes the fact that she can open her mouth and start yammering on about code and he can finish the sentence for her. If code is Laura’s native language, Otto is the first other fluent speaker she’s ever met who’s her own age. 

Laura thought she was safe. She thought that Shelby liked Wing, judging from the way she’d retreated in on herself when Laura had told her the news of Wing’s apparent death, judging from the way Shelby can wrap him around her little finger and get him all flustered when nobody else can. She thought that Shelby appreciating Wing and his dark hair and tall build and proficiency in every single martial art known to man meant that Shelby would have no interest in Otto, Otto who can hardly do more than ten pushups in a row, at least not like  _ that.  _ Because Otto and Shelby are friends, sure, good friends at that, but they also fight for days on end and make rude comments about each other’s appearances and rib one another about Laura and Wing respectively. Laura always thought that the stereotype of boys pulling at girls’ pigtails because they liked them was sexist bullcrap, but maybe she’s wrong.

“I thought it was Wing,” Laura whispers around the lump in her throat. “When you told me you thought you were getting a crush on someone, I thought it was Wing.”   
Shelby sighs heavily. “Yeah,” she admits. “Me too.”

Laura exhales. She forces herself to sit up, to stop wallowing and to pull herself together. “Did you kiss him?”   
“Yeah,” Shelby says. “It was nice.”   
“Fireworks?”

“I thought I was gonna hurl, if that counts,” Shelby laughs. Laura steals a glance over at her best friend. She looks happy. Laura can tell that she’s trying not to gloat, that she’s trying to seem serious for Laura’s sake, but underneath all of that, Shelby’s happy. “I dunno. I don’t think it’s true love, or anything. Not yet. But,” Shelby waves her hands around for emphasis, “he’s a boy. A dumb boy. And us girls have to stick together, yeah? I don’t want you to be mad at me. So if you want me to break it off, I’ll do it. Not that there’s really anything to break off yet.”   
She could. She could tell Shelby to break it off, and they can carry on as normal. But Shelby looks  _ happy,  _ and, honestly, a bit of normal teenage drama is probably healthy. It might cleanse Otto of all the weird melancholiness he’s been dragging around with him ever since he confronted Overlord. Laura’s a lot of things, but she’s not necessarily vindictive, not anymore.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says. And then, “You know, it was rank when I kissed him. He tasted of sweat.”   
“Gross!” Shelby winces, and throws a pillow at Laura’s head. 

“You got off lightly,” Laura says wisely, and then she flashes Shelby a smile. A sign that it’s okay to relax, to joke about it, because even if it isn’t, Laura’s going to be happy about it. At least it’s  _ Shelby  _ that Otto likes. That’s understandable. It’s not like it’s some random girl that Laura doesn’t know.

Shelby and Otto. Otto and Shelby.

“Shotto,” Laura muses out loud.

“I like that,” Shelby says. “Sounds violent. And my name’s first, which is a win for feminism.”   


At least the violent part is accurate. Probably. If Shelby and Otto could barely survive as friends without killing each other, Laura's sure as hell not looking forward to the bloodshed that'll come from them dating.  



End file.
